This blog is about our adventure to live the most sustainable family life we can. Only the three essentials, a roof over our heads, food, and education. From buying and recycling an old boat, to producing our own energy, these are the things we learn along the way and some simple advice to others with a dream.

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Monday, December 6, 2010

What is a home anyway?

Now that we're closer to our sailing goals, it's time to focus on living. Why did we embark on this adventure in the first place?, Are we making progress?, Have we learnt anything? These are the questions that roll around in my head when I find myself completely relaxed, usually gazing out over the lagoon with a fresh cup of coffee in hand or watching the kids set out on a new adventure.

These questions are often followed by, Are we going to make it?, Are we doing the right thing for the children?, What happens if we fall short? I think that these questions dominate our lives now because we're so much happier and healthier living on Odessa. When we lived in the rat race we were so busy trying to survive every day or caught up in the things we thought were important, that we didn't have time to even think about such fundamental concepts or even each other.

The answers are elusive and the questions serve to keep us on our toes, To be honest, I long for the day when we can be completely content, in the knowledge that everything is going to be alright. That day may never come and I think that these questions are part of what makes us human, but for now we'll rely on faith... faith in ourselves and our ability to figure everything out.

I once read in an airline magazine, that as a husband and father you need only to provide three basics for your family, a roof over your head, food on the table, and an education. Once you are able to achieve these three fundamentals, everything else will fall into place. The article was about peoples inability to follow their dreams because of the brainwashing we all receive from birth. From the influence of our parents fears and insecurities, to modern societies need to keep people in the system earning a wage, buying goods and paying taxes. The cumulative effect is that we've become afraid to step into the unknown, even though we know that there is a good chance that we'd be happier humans living our dreams. But, unfortunately 99% of people stay in the routine defined for them by the series of events that are their everyday lives.

I'll be honest... the trip I was making was to inspect and hopefully buy Odessa and I still had a lot of doubt in my mind about "my" big adventure. The question that haunted me was, Am I doing the right thing for my family? The article simplified things for me and defined the "right thing" as being the three fundamentals, and this did make it easier to say "sold" when the time came.

One year later and I still agree with the author... all you need is a roof over your head, food on the table and an education. All of the other things, the conveniences, happiness and even health seem to fall into place naturally. Once you're disconnected from "society" and it's trappings or dabble in multiple societies, you find a way to maintain only the important additions to the three fundamentals... you find yourself happy, with a real home and far fewer trappings to worry about.

Now this doesn't require a boat, it could be a small holding in some far off land, even a camper in Alaska, and the three fundamentals cannot be considered geographical elements. But it does require physically being outside the geographical boundaries of modern civilization. Space is at premium in the cosmopolitan cities of our modern world and therefor control is at it's highest. I can feel the changes taking place every time I'm in a major city, the draw of modern life, the influence of the trappings and the need to escape them before they lead me off the path and into the forrest.

This has been a long and necessary way of setting up this post. Because now that we have left the underworld of the boat yard, and accepted the graces of the modern society that we're trying to avoid. This epitome of social standing called Puerto Cupecoy is our new home, for now. Sure it's a pretty world, full of nice things, conveniences and the promise of a wonderful life, so the brochure says. However, we were lured here for very different reasons, cheap dockage, the need for water and electricity, the room to work on our sails and because there are very few places that we can go with our 8' 6" draft (depth of keel), and most of them are several thousand dollars a month. In other words we had no choice and accepted the offer of an introductory $450 per month dock fee with relief.

Even though there are no guarantees of this dock fee not increasing over time, we have already made plans to escape this trap as soon as possible. It took only two weeks for that feeling of stepping off the path to creep into our lives. Firstly, no internet, no showers, and the worrying part is that there is no motivation to solve these two fundamental insufficiencies, "mega yachts have their own internet and showers" is the response from the resort. This has been closely followed by apparent condo owner complaints about our having a couple of sail bags and lines on the gargantuan mega yacht dock where we are tied up, despite having permission to do so from the dock master. Even thought every condo on our side of the marina is empty, and the yachts in the main marina have anchors, chains and dirty cushions littered all over the place, we seem to be a target as a youngish family living aboard. We are tucked away out of sight, very quiet and you'd not know we were here unless you walk all the way out to the extreme edge of the property... however, this doesn't make us immune to the politics and positioning of modern day citizens in their desperation to feel important.

It turns out the Puerto Cupecoy with all of it's trimmings is exactly the world that we're trying to avoid, and geographically this certainly isn't our destination, but Odessa is a wonderful home full of promise and the ability to take us wherever we wish to go. My family is the happier than I could possibly hope for and I am pretty sure that one day we'll find the geographical element that not only completes our home, but gives us the confidence that everything will be alright.

1 comment:

Merry Christmas! We hope you find a place for your joyous holiday. The picture of Devon is adorable. So sorry to hear that you are in an uncomfortable docking/living space for now. Maybe you can change locations if you keep your ear to the ground or sea as it maybe more forthgiving of that type of info :). I wanted to inform you of 2 happenings this week. #1. Kevin got cleared for port removal last Friday. This means he is medically HEALED, to me this means God is finished with that miracle! #2. We said goodbye to our old friend Champ. He passed away Saturday while we were at church. He also had a dog canc-r, as this breed is prone to getting it and hip displasia. All dog's go to heaven, but we miss him very much. We are so happy to be able to share a little of your experience. ~The Bauduin Academy~ :)

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Coffee & Ice Cream update

The kids events have been a huge success with visits to local farms which are being revived across the islands. Knot classes, beach hunts and a lot more. The season is winding down so the tourists are thin on the ground , and cruising kids are on the move south for the summer. We'll have more events in different spots on the way to Grenada.